The Cruciality of the Cross

Forsyth produced one of the most profound titles in the history of theological writing, and the book is no bridesmaid to the title. As so often one might be reminded of L.P. Hartley's famous statement 'the past is another country'; Forsyth's methodology and language are a different way of doing things to that of contemporary theological discourse. The reader must step beyond 21st century parameters. But having done that one will find Forsyth driving to the heart of hermeneutical and soteriological issues that are timeless.

In particular, early in the lectures (for in the main part that is what these essays were) Forsyth overcomes that perennial chestnut, the wedge driven between Paul and Jesus (13). Throughout the work, timelessly, he show more refuses to allow a cleavage between Christ of Faith and Jesus of History. Paul could not have made the soteriological and christological claims that he did make if they did not ring true to the ears of those who knew the oral traditions of Jesus' teachings and the broad facts of Jesus' peculiar life. Nor can the historical experiences be diverted from the doxological experience of Christ in the experience of the earliest Christian realms: 'A Christianity merely ethical, refined, or sympathetic certainly makes for the social state, if you can keep it up, but the Christianity that makes for the Church is of a much more intimate, personal and positive kind' (33).

Forsyth, if I may import Anselmian concepts, never forgets how great a thing sin is, and therefore will never allow a merely liberal agenda of the betterment of the human state to dictate terms of theological language.

Of course the practice of theological discourse today no longer has space for the rhetorical methods into which Forsyth often soars. In particular engagement with an imaginary interlocutor and with posed questions becomes tedious to a post-modern ear. There are, to be honest, flights of fancy and questions begged, too. But ultimately his early emphasis on the holiness of God, and later on the judgement of God are timeless theological truths, jettisoned by post-modernity at peril; 'There can be no talk of propitiation in the sense of mollification, or of purchasing God's grace, in any religion founded on the Bible' (186)

The Cruciality of the Cross is a timeless gem. Sadly too many students of Christian faith will not be able to overcome the hurdle of Victorian prose. Their loss is immeasurable; we need Forsyth's emphases now even more than we did in 1909 show less